New style of zombie horror

Rating: Null/10 (17 November 2012)

In many ways this film lead the way for the new age of zombie horror. It's a film that takes its setting seriously and treats it with dignity and forethought. No longer are we supposed to fear zombies that shuffle ridiculously slowly through open fields where we can see them coming miles away. These zombies are vicious, fast and absolutely brutal in their search for human flesh. This idea had been seen before, but this film helped to popularize it and nowadays it's pretty much the norm for zombie flicks, which is great in my opinion as it increases the horror and makes the film more exciting, because you know that in physical confrontation with these zombies you'd almost surely lose.
I also liked how they treat the human aspects of a zombie apocalypse. This was one of the first films of its kind where the true horror didn't come from the undead or the infected, as they are called, but rather from the other survivors. The zombies are a plague, a force of nature, in that they're utterly predictable and unable to reason or to be reasoned with. They're scary and to be avoided, but they're not malignant in a true sense of the word. Rather they're just driven by their instincts. Humans, on the other hand, are capable of true malignancy. They're capable of making the right choice, but they often get distracted by their urges and will make wrong decisions, quite often believing that they're justified in their behaviour. And that's what makes this film truly terrifying: watching as the last vestiges of civilizations bend, crack and crumble under impossible odds.
So the basic story is good, it's very good. I also liked the main actors, who all felt like wholesome characters with their own motivations and urges. They also managed to grew and flourish throughout the story and none of them ended the story as the same as they had started, which is always a good sign. On the other hand, the antagonists felt rather hollow. They didn't grow all that much and we didn't learn anything worthwhile about them. They were just there to provide suspension and threat.
The visual style of this film is something that divides opinions. It's rather bleak and other-worldly, with strong vibrant colours clashing with shades of brown, grey and black. It looks dirty and unpleasant, which fits the tone of the story, but is still somewhat hard to look at for prolonged periods of time. I didn't particularly care for it - except for few particular scenes - but I get its purpose. They way the film is shot also manages to save a lot. Lots of weird camera angles and clever settings make the film interesting to follow.
In the end this is a zombie film that every fan of the genre should see. It's not the greatest in its genre by a long shot, but it has good character, suitably brutal action scenes and few storytelling tricks that have since become extremely popular, largely thanks to this film.